Quest Seekers

Quest Seekers is the 2009 summer reading challenge taking place in welsh libraries. It is aimed at children of all ages and takes them on a mystical quest where they can use their imagination and discover the joy of reading.

Each task involves reading two books, and if they finish their quest is complete. They can also join in and play games and read some exclusive blogs from top authors.

TES Connect Free Resources

TES connect contains over 30,000 free resources, covering just about every subject area.

Twitters are Quitting

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Today’s Twitters are often tomorrow’s quitters, according to data that questions the long-term success of the latest social networking sensation used by celebrities from Oprah Winfrey to Britney Spears.

Data from Nielsen Online , Nielsen: Twitter’s explosive growth can’t be sustained, which measures Internet traffic, found that more than 60 percent of Twitter users stopped using the free social networking site a month after joining.

“Twitter’s audience retention rate, or the percentage of a given month’s users who come back the following month, is currently about 40 percent,” David Martin, Nielsen Online’s vice president of primary research, said in a statement.

“For most of the past 12 months, pre-Oprah, Twitter has languished below 30 percent retention.”

San Francisco-based Twitter was created three years ago as an Internet-based service that could allow people to follow the 140-character messages or “tweets” of friends and celebrities which could be sent to computer screens or mobile devices.

But it has enjoyed a recent explosion in popularity on the back of celebrities such as actor Ashton Kutcher and U.S. talk show host Oprah Winfrey singing its praises and sending out “tweets” which can alert readers to breaking news or the sender’s sometimes mundane activities.

President Barack Obama used Twitter during last year’s campaign and other prominent celebrities on Twitter include basketballer Shaquille O’Neal and singers Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus.

Twitter, as a private company, does not disclose the number of its users but according to Nielsen Online, Twitter’s website had more than 7 million unique visitors in February this year compared to 475,000 in February a year ago.

But Martin said a retention rate of 40 percent will limit a site’s growth to a 10 percent reach figure over the longer term.

“There simply aren’t enough new users to make up for defecting ones after a certain point,” he said in a statement.

Martin said Facebook and MySpace, the more established social network sites, enjoyed retention rates that were twice as high and those rates only rose when they went through their explosive growth phases.

Both currently have retention rates of about 70 percent with Facebook having about 200 million users.

“Twitter has enjoyed a nice ride over the last few months, but it will not be able to sustain its meteoric rise without establishing a higher level of user loyalty,” said Martin.

(Writing by Belinda Goldsmith, Editing by Miral Fahmy)

Reuters April 2009

Teachers.TV – Vocational Education

Learn more about vocational provision and explore 14-19 education on the Teachers TV channel.  Classroom resources, policy information and school case studies are all available online.

 

 

 

 

 

A Vision of Britain

 

This excellent website allows you to access historical maps and statistical information about your local area in the 19th and 20th centuries through postcode and placename searches. You also have access to travel writing from as far back as the 1190’s – the Rough Guides of their day! This inlcudes the Giraldus Cambrensis tour through Wales.

You can zoom into the maps for more detail and the Statistical Atlas tab gives you a great overview of life in the UK through the decades under headings like Langauge & Learning, Employment and Social Structure. There are interactive online tutorials under the Learning Resources tab, such as the history of census taking, which help you to get the most from the site. This is a valuable social research tool that gives access to many previously unpublished resources.

Wales Smithsonian Cymru

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival, which is based in Washington DC, is running an online exhibition of the culture, history and people of Wales. This website offers a preview of the exhibition in the form of slideshows and facts about Wales and is split into sections that include Heritage meets Innovation, Language and Arts in Action and Wales and the World.

The Tate Online

Tate Shots – Issue 23

Covering the Venice Biennale including the pavilions of New Zealand, Norway and Denmark and an exhibition featuring artists from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller is also turning the local residents into a live artwork. Marina Abramović to talk about performance on Twitter.